• Kitchen energy savings are easy. For instance, save two times the energy by just covering cooking pots.

• Save up to 2.5 gal/minute ofwater by turning off the tap when brushing your teeth.

• Idling your car’s engine for more than 30 seconds wastes fuel, increases pollution, and can damage your engine. If everyone in the US idled their engines one minute less each day, we’d save over 92 million gallons of gas and reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 225,200 tons per year.

• Vampire energy cost the US $10 billion in 2009. Unplug your electronics or put them on a power strip that you can turn off.

In Hebrew a mitzvah is an act of human kindness or a good deed, so a mitzvah moment is something that one can do in just a few moments, often for free, which will make a difference for others and the world. I’ve been writing a column, “Mitzvah Moments,” for a local paper for more than six years; now I want to share the ideas I have developed with a larger readership. I’ll be posting news about climate change, events to call attention to it, and sharing the many tips about how to make a difference that I have developed over the last eight years.

I’m Tish Levee, a freelance writer, columnist, and activist, with a focus on climate change and sustainability, as well as other aspects of social justice. I’ve cared passionately about nature and the environment for as long as I can remember. Now at age 75, I believe the most important thing I can do for the rest of my life is focus on climate change, because

while I won’t be here when the planet gets hotter, my great-grandchildren will be. With the Dalai Lama, I believe that combating climate change is a matter of the “survival of humanity.”